Halo SPV3 - The Halo CE overhaul that fans have always wanted

Gameplay and Graphical changes

When creating Halo: SPV3 the team wanted to deliver an experience that contained the same gameplay magic as the Halo: Combat Evolved, while at the same time adding and improving upon several ideas and mechanics from games later in the series in order to create an experience that all fans of Halo will love.

What SPV3 plans to achieve is to create an experience that is unique, fun and distinctly Halo, delivering an experience that is both pleasing to long-time fans and newcomers alike, similar to Id Software's most recent iteration of DOOM.

Halo 1 had a very intelligent sandbox and was so replayable because the AI was so good, and because every weapon was tuned to be a great experience

With SPV3, the goal was to do a version of the campaign that would include all the things people loved, fix the things we felt the official games didn't do well but were good ideas and concepts, and to pretty much surprise and delight people at every turn.

When considering what they wanted to add to the game, the developers took inspiration from the entire Halo Universe, not just the original Halo games. From these sources and even ideas that were originally planned and cut from the original games a lot of interesting and innovative gameplay changes were added to SPV3.

One such change is the gravity mechanic that has been added to the Pillar of Autumn missions, which allows the ships gravity to be turned off to provide an all new Halo 0g gameplay option in certain areas of the ship. This change alongside additional rooms, terminals, and routes to objectives make the Pillar of Autumn a totally different level to play through.

In combat, each of the weapons have been redesigned to offer a unique playstyle and feel, while staying true to their original counterparts. Several new enemies and weapons have also been added to the game to add some additional variety, from the Brutes and their unique variants of covenant tech to other Human weapons like the DMR, machine pistols, and Battle rifle. Each weapon will be unique to use and offer their own advantages and disadvantages against specific enemy types and in certain locations.

We really looked at everything that the series had to offer, even beyond the games into the books, comics, and original concepts for the games.

We identified why things in later games worked, why they didn't, where we felt Bungie didn't great creative enough with some of their ideas and re-executed those same ideas in a way that everyone, including people who worked on the actual games have really enjoyed.

In several levels, new areas and options have been added to give the game some extra replay value and take advantage of the sandbox design that a lot of the original levels have.

For example in the mission "Halo", where Master Chief must seek out and defend groups of marines across a large open map, can now have its objectives done in any order and with a large variety of vehicles and other options. On this mission Master1337 claims that players could literally complete this mission in 30 different ways, not including weapon loadout changes.

We think we hit the perfect sweet spot just like the original did where when you play on legendary, you can learn so many tricks to the game you can literally replay each mission 10 times and learn something new each time you play, or do it in a new way.

Our ultimate hope is that people will ultimately spend a good 12 hours playing through it on Legendary and never feeling frustrated, and then come back again to try our new Noble difficulty, find all the hidden story terminals, or hunt down the skulls that add different kind of challenges.

I guess the final thing I'd just have to say to anyone who downloads it is please please please give it a shot on legendary eventually.

Graphical Changes

From the outset Halo SP3 has been designed to run on modern systems, with support for a wide range of 4:3, 16:9, 16:10 and even Ultra-wide 21:9 screen resolutions, with a newly designed HUD that can accommodate 4K resolutions and beyond.

Texture resolutions see a bump up to 2048x2048 in the game and the developers have used a new bitmap data to deliver a greater level of detail than the original game. Most models in the game have been recreated to give objects a higher poly count and several new effects like

Most models in the game have been recreated to give objects a higher poly count and several new effects like anti-aliasing, light bloom, and several other post-processes have been added to give the game a vastly improved look and feel.

With SPV3 Halo: CE will change from 2001 graphics to something that looks better than even Microsoft's own Halo: Combat Evolved remaster for the Xbox 360. While these may not be the best graphics in gaming to date, they are a massive improvement for Halo 1 and a huge achievement for the team.

The game has also been optimised for almost instantaneous loading times for SSD users, giving the game seamless map loading and perfect transitions from level to level that is totally free from loading screens. HDD users will also have reduced load times, but not quite the instant loading times that are offered on SSDs.

I've seen the last two versions of this mod and they are pretty similar. The graphics are certainly better but I would never call them on par with modern games. Many objects look like they are too shiny and bumped, like they're vomiting specular. Many of the new weapons are creative but really do not have the Halo feel. You say everything in this mod is inspired by other Halo games. You couldn't be further from the truth. CMT Stands for CUSTOM Mapping Team. What's custom is all the stuff they made that isn't in any Halo lore, though what IS custom is stuff they've shamelessly copied from other games. The level of quality is way too low to get my excitement going. Sorry, would not play.Quote

I've seen the last two versions of this mod and they are pretty similar. The graphics are certainly better but I would never call them on par with modern games. Many objects look like they are too shiny and bumped, like they're vomiting specular. Many of the new weapons are creative but really do not have the Halo feel. You say everything in this mod is inspired by other Halo games. You couldn't be further from the truth. CMT Stands for CUSTOM Mapping Team. What's custom is all the stuff they made that isn't in any Halo lore, though what IS custom is stuff they've shamelessly copied from other games. The level of quality is way too low to get my excitement going. Sorry, would not play.

That's a rather silly and uninformed opinion. The first SPV was simply them stretching their legs, and they admitted they didn't put that much thought into it. And SPV2 was leaked so its not really relevant in the situation.

They've made a custom model for Master Chief, they've made completely new areas, new weapons, and have worked fervently on adapting the sandbox to suit them. The shininess can be deactivated and is actually the result of a third party tool. And, how exactly can you judge whether or not it fits the "Halo feel" when you haven't played it?Quote

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